Supersonic School - Air Fore Test Pilot School

Airman, May, 2001 by John B. Dendy IV

Test Pilot School instructors expand the world's flight research realm, one student at a time

Test Pilot school students fly a host of aircraft. From gliders to World War II trainers, even balloons. But in the NF-16 VISTA -- a highly modified fighter with the avionics to mimic several aircraf -- they get the experience of flying everything from the F-15, F-22 and Navy F-14 to the Joint Strike Fighter and even NASA's X-38 shuttle lifeboat in one airframe.

The instructor laid a bold final project on the table for a team of six students in sharp green flight suits. It seems the Air Force wanted solutions to an aircraft weapon storeage problem. Flight manual information on the ability of aircraft terrain avoidance systems to support a fighter pilot flying with an uneven payload of bombs under the plane wings was due for testing.

The students were ready. They expanded the warplane's weapon storeage capability. First, they conducted six terrain avoidance flight tests, flying a fighter with unbalanced loads of dissimilar bombs. Then they passed their data to airmen who changed the flight manual.

Their instructor wad confident: The students proved they could fit in on the front lines of a flight test research world that has existed at least since the balloon and biplane eras.

Learning to be legends

Flight test students move on each year, to be replaced by new ones who yearn for their turns at the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Some of them become legends, like test pilot Maj. Gen. Albert Boyd, who amassed 23,000 flying hours, or flight test engineer and instructor Lt. Col. Ellison Onizuka, a crew member on the ill-fated space shuttle Challenger mission.

Twice a year, eager volunteers and their family members arrive for the year-long Test Pilot School experience. The "freshman" become dog tag-wearing disciples, learning the science and methodology of aircraft performance, flying quality, and systems and test management.

Only then are these men and women ready to fly the advanced combat aircraft as researchers, or move to the astronaut pilot program. Some of the students come from abroad, as representatives of nations with World-class flight test programs. Spain, Singapore and Norway have students in the 2001 upper class. The Netherlands, Israel and Greece have students there, too. The Navy also sends students. There's even a "Navy Room" in the school, fully, equipped for computerized "skull sessions."

It seems almost unfair to call the 48 test pilot school selectees "students." By experience, they already rate among the world's top combat pilots, engineers and navigators, or they wouldn't be invited to enter the classrooms at Boyd Hall, a scholarly sanctum of experimental flight test study.

Those most qualified to call these airmen students are the school's instructors. At this level of knowledge, they are proven pros, all graduates of the system at Edwards, itself a storied complex of flight test research facilities, elegantly superimposed over the Mojave Desert.

"The [instructors'] attitude is different with the students. It's not adversarial; it's like a brotherhood. You know within a year that this person is going to be a compatriot in a test program or a [test] squadron. We support each other," said Maj. Om Prakash, an instructor in the school's flying qualities division.

"We are the MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] of applied flight research. We fly several types of airplanes and look at the differences. We observe something complex and unique, and describe it in simple terms so it can be useful to engineers and people making decisions on policy or what to buy in contracts," the major said.

Making the grade

A test pilot's first duty is to ask one searingly important question: "Will the airplane or widget you show me meet the needs of the pilots who will use it to fight the next war?" This could mean flying sensitive up-and-coming aircraft that will destroy missiles with a laser, unmanned craft that will drop bombs and eavesdrop inside enemy lines, or aircraft that fly like cargo planes but take off like helicopters.

The entire program is led by Col. George Ka'iliwai, the first flight test engineer to serve as the school's commandant. The colonel's dad was a master sergeant who retired at Edwards -- the base was the son's supersonic playground. Test pilots trail-blazed in futuristic experimental aircraft high over the enlisted family housing area, and the school produced astronaut candidates in massive quantities. The colonel-to-be and his boyhood chums were among the school's fans.

Today's version of the school offers pilots at least 140 flying hours in a 48-week course, about 200 hours less than most pilots fly in a year. Engineers and navigators are about 40 percent of each class, and they fly about 90 hours each. Instructors ensure that students repeatedly prepare for and conduct test flights, amassing and reporting the data.

"It's a demanding curriculum," Ka'iliwai stated softly.